


Save him. Bring him back. Let him live.

by Gewher



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Blood and Injury, Hugh | Third of Five Lives, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lobotomy, Mental Health Issues, Missing Scene, Nonbinary Character, Pain, Physical Therapy, The Borg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gewher/pseuds/Gewher
Summary: A nameless ex-borg survives Narissa's slaughter due to a mistake during their reclamation. They are able to get to Hugh in time to save him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Save him. Bring him back. Let him live.

**Author's Note:**

> I have yet to do a ST:P rewatch so there's likely some inconsistencies. Been decades since I've watched some of the Borg content so likely some factual errors in describing functions as well. Please let me know if there are glaring mistakes to fix or content warnings to add.

The ex-borg unit felt their systems rebooting slowly, so slowly, without their connection to the collective. Nanites, seemingly confused and sluggish, attempting to knit flesh, bone, and cold metal. Cold. Cold was new. As was pain, irrational and unshared. A few short months as an individual had not been enough to get used to the sensations. 

Loneliness was fairly new too. Emptiness. An empty head in more than one way, empty of the cacophony of voices and orders and images that accompanied being part of the collective, and empty of a significant portion of organic brain.

The empty space where borg tech had once filled was exactly where the Romulan agent had shot them… A fluke of organic reasoning. Narissa and her lackeys had assumed that every xB could be killed in the same ways as most organics; and to be fair, most could be. But not on this unit, not after being partially lobotomized during the reclamation. An incomplete brain, once filled with metal and circuits, was now a mass of barely-healed scars and a new gaping disruptor blast hole. 

This new disruptor wound was healing far too slowly, and aching far too sharply. Almost making the lonely not-borg wish for the blissful unfeeling connection of the collective. Phantom pains from a long-missing arm flared up alongside the cruel throbbing of the sizzling crater on their face. Without the full amount of their borg tech to work together, systems were crashing and rebooting, wires and neurons crossing. 

They lay on the cold floor of the defunct cube, surrounded by the bodies of the other fallen ex-borg in echoing silence, and felt a new ache. Chest tightening, they choked back a tiny sob as systems finally came mostly back online. The physical pain was still there, though dulled to a background throb. 

The other ache stayed, the deeper pain that swarmed their vision and created a pinprick of moisture at the corner of their one remaining eye. Grief for their fellow xBs, and grief at Hugh’s horrified facial expression as the blasts had rung out.

Hugh had been the first one to actually look them in that one remaining eye. To see the person, the new individual, behind the scars and remaining borg tech. His exhausted but hopeful face was what got the xB unit through each day of neuroplasticity therapy. Hugh had visited them through the long hours of attempting speech and bodily coordination while missing a significant chunk of frontal lobe. He had sat with them as they raged, unable to control the impulsive anger and frustration at each new roadblock.

Hugh had been the one to comfort the xB when they had had a breakdown over pronouns that hadn’t fit. Half-remembered names and body parts from before becoming borg that were no longer even relevant to their newfound identity. And it was Hugh who told them that they weren’t alone in this, that he was like that too, not quite what he was assigned and assumed to be. 

It was the thought of Hugh in danger that got the xB up from the ground, metal and flesh and bone still grinding harshly together in places.

Stiff and uncoordinated limbs worked together, a testament to the months of work that had led them to this point. The xB felt, rather than heard, the cube’s shift in power, the queen’s chamber being lit up and the echo of assimilated voices through the cube. Then eventually the voices screamed and were quiet.

They felt the twisting cold knife of loss before even rounding the corner and finding his body.

They felt the empty cold threaten to swallow them again. But he was still warm and so their cold turned to resolve. Half remembered subroutines took over, and movement smoothed and pain melted away. They let the vestiges of individual identity they had painstakingly built up melt away. They let whatever was left of the borg drone they had once been take over. They were nothing but a tiny voice repeating: “Save him. Bring him back. Let him live.”

The lonely ex-borg carried Hugh’s limp body to the queen’s chamber, mentally reprogramming nanites to flow out of their body and into his. Their own wound began to seep thick blood as Hugh’s bleeding slowed. Their nanites, already reduced in number and capability, were unable to keep up with stabilizing two bodies at once.

The smoothed out movement of the drone started to stumble, as systems began to shut down once more.

“Almost there. Save him. Bring him back. Let him live.”

They reached the chamber and entered in the command sequences, holding Hugh up as the queen’s snakelike attachments bit into Hugh’s body, lighting up the tech that just might bring him back like the coding was meant to bring the queen back.

They slowly slumped to the ground, borg tech having shut down completely, servos fried and wires frayed. Bits of tech short circuiting where fluid and blood met electrical current. Somehow the organic parts of them continued on, an organic heart beating slowly. A mostly organic set of lungs taking ragged, shallow breaths. A single eye blinking up as Hugh's form began to twitch. 

He gasped for air and his eyes shot open: fully black and blinking in surprise, but somehow still warm and kind. So warm. Warm was new. Relief was new. 

They smiled up at him, a feeling of soft warmth enveloping them as Hugh fell to his knees and scooped the nameless into his arms.

Three more beats of a failing organic heart:   
"Saved him. Brought him back. Let him live."

"Yes you did."


End file.
